BlackBerry 10 swipe-based predictive text comes to iPhone [video]

Research In Motion recently gave the world a preview of its next-generation BlackBerry 10 software. While investors weren’t terribly impressed with RIM’s efforts and the company’s stock took a hit, developers and users alike were intrigued by several features shown off by the struggling smartphone maker. One such feature is the predictive text implementation in BlackBerry 10, which places word predictions on keys expected to be in the user’s path as he or she types on a smartphone’s virtual keyboard. A swipe upward on a key containing a word prediction will input the word. While BlackBerry users will likely have to wait until the fourth quarter to begin enjoying RIM’s new text input system, iPhone users can enjoy a reproduction of the technology now. iDownloadBlog recently unearthed a new system tweak called Octopus Keyboard in Cydia, the unauthorized third-party app store for jailbroken iOS devices. Though still in beta, the free app does a good job mimicking RIM’s predictive text mechanism, and a video showcasing the implementation can be viewed below.